Annual report reveals only 22% women in Pakistan are social media users: PTA

There is a great gender gap in social media users of Pakistan, reveals a report published by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) for the year 2021.

“Pakistan has some of the widest gender gaps identified not only by international organisations but also by Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS),” states the report.

“The digitally excluded segments of Pakistani women are mainly illiterate, unemployed, disabled, and those over 45 years of age,” it added.

Since the last couple of years, the percentage of female mobile subscriptions is only 21 per cent of the total subscriptions. This results in a large number of unaccounted women using mobile connections. Of 1,825 million (FY 2021) mobile connections across Pakistan, only 38 million are held by females against their CNICs; the remaining 144 million connections are held by the male population.

The Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement (PSLM) Household Survey 2021 released by PBS reported that 46 per cent of the country’s population (25% female and 65% male) owns a mobile phone. In terms of the rural-urban divide, the gap between male-female mobile ownership in rural areas is much higher compared to urban areas.

As per the report, out of the total social media users in the country, only 22 per cent are women, while the rest of 78 per cent are men.

The report also revealed the websites that are most visited local websites by the users, which are Daraz, OLX, Urdu Point, and Dawn.